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Posts Tagged ‘Containers’

Trainspotting Hotel: Stacked Shipping Containers Overlook the Rail Tracks

16 May

[ By SA Rogers in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

The phrase ‘Trainspotting Hotel’ probably doesn’t conjure visions of a cozy, comfortable and safe place to lay your head at night, but this hotel gets its nickname from its location overlooking rail tracks rather than anything relating to the heroin-charged cult classic film. Obviously, that’s a good thing for guests who want to enjoy a peaceful getaway on the Elbe River near the town of Litomerice, Czech Republic at this unusual pop-up structure by Artikul Architects. 

The hotel is comprised of just three shipping containers, with one forty-foot crate stacked atop two twenty-foot crates in a perpendicular arrangement to create a covered space underneath. The two ground-floor containers house the bathrooms, storage and one of the guest rooms, while four more guest accommodations are set into the top layer.

The client commissioned Artikul to produce a modular design that can be easily taken apart and moved when desired, and would have a light footprint on the land. The hotel has its own built-in water reservoir for the showers and sinks, and utilizes waterless toilets, and the bedrooms are compact but warm and welcoming, fitted with bunk beds and lined with birch plywood.

Artikul is known for producing sustainable structures, so it’s no surprise that they did something creative using recycled and natural materials. Barely any modification to the containers was necessary, preserving the ability to load them onto a truck. The top container is sheathed in reclaimed wood and features a terrace and awning so guests can hang out in the open air and enjoy the views.

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[ By SA Rogers in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

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Urban Rigger: Floating Student Housing Made of Shipping Containers

22 Sep

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

floating-student-housing-1

This hexagonal floating student housing complex made of stacked reclaimed shipping containers is better than any dorm you could hope to live in. ‘Urban Rigger’ by Bjarke Ingels (BIG) creates a sustainable solution to the pressing need for additional accommodations for students in the city, providing 15 living spaces arranged around an internal courtyard. Completely carbon-neutral, the structures are solar-powered and make use of hydro source heating and low-energy pumps, and the first unit opened to the public on September 21st.

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Each apartment is available to college students at $ 600 per month and includes a private bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Occupants get access to the courtyard as well as a kayak landing, bathing platform, barbecue area and roof terrace. The pontoon basement features storage zones and fully automated laundry. It’s a pretty sweet deal for students, who get to gaze out of giant windows at the sunset every evening and enjoy a water-centric lifestyle that most adults only dream about.

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Making use of the harbor ensures that students get to live close to the school, instead of far outside the city, where most affordable units are located. Eventually, BIG plans to create entire communities made up of multiple structures.

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“There are few strategies that allow cities to expand,” the architects explain. “Yet, Copenhagen’s harbor remains an underutilized and underdeveloped area at the heart of the city. By introducing a building typology optimized for harbor cities we can introduce a housing solution that will keep students at the heart of the city.”

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“Meanwhile, the standardized container system has been developed to allow goods to be transported by road, water or air, to anywhere in the world in a complex network of operators at a very low cots. By making use of the standard container system we are offered the framework of extremely flexible building typology.”

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“By stacking 9 container units in a circle, we can create 15 studio residences which frame a centralized winter garden; this is used as a common meeting place for students. The housing is also buoyant, like a boat, so that can be replicated in other harbor cities where affordable housing is needed, but space is limited.”

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[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Zig-Zagging Cantilevered Shipping Containers Create a Dynamic Pavilion

28 Jun

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

cantilevered shipping crates 1

Recognizable in their original form, twelve shipping containers form a two-story recreational pavilion for the Chinese city of Shanxi, stacked and set at an angle with the top units cantilevered over the bottom ones. People’s Architecture Office (PAO) capped the ends of each container in glass and removed sections of the walls, floors and ceilings to create a surprisingly bright and open interior that carries natural daylight into every corner.

shipping crate architecture

shipping container building

The containers are staggered, which not only creates a terrace on the open ceilings of the lower red crates, but also produces a dynamic floor plan with lots of nooks and crannies for seating overlooking the surrounding city. This clever arrangement effectively multiplies the space without having to add additional containers, and each container acts like a viewfinder stretching out toward the skyline.

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Exterior stairs offer easy access to both rooftop terrace levels, providing residents with even more views. Perpendicularly set on top of the red containers, the yellow cantilevered units cast shadows on the ground to create sheltered spaces outside. Inside, there’s plenty of room to congregate, making it a convenient meeting space for people who live in the adjacent housing developments.

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Since the containers have barely been modified, it would also be a breeze to pack the whole thing up and transport it to a new location when necessary, or replace individual containers if they get damaged. While other architectural projects reclaiming used shipping containers often take pains to disguise them (and at least insulate the interiors, which seems like a budget-friendly but potentially uncomfortable oversight in this case), this one stands as a highly visible example of affordable alternative architecture making use of widely available portable materials.

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Absolut Brilliance: Vodka Shipping Containers to Workspaces

08 Aug

[ By Steph in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

absolut containers 1

Four bright blue shipping containers formerly used to transport Absolut vodka have become ‘Creative Space,’ a versatile series of workspaces at the company’s headquarters in Åhus, Sweden.  Recent architectural grads Astrid Skog and Charlotte Stuveback stacked the crates and transformed them into working environments supporting a wide range of creative processes. The structure was used for Absolut’s ‘Hackathon,’ a three-day event exploring ways to creatively repurpose materials like glass vodka bottles and otherwise reduce the company’s environmental footprint.

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The shipping container workspaces consist of four distinct areas: the bar, the distillery, the workshop and the bottlery. The bar offers a place to relax, drink coffee, read magazines and talk to fellow designers. The distillery is a brainstorming space, and the bottlery encourages experimentation with ideas in early phases. Finally, the workshop is where these ideas are made into real products and concepts.  One of the coolest projects that came out of Hackathon is a DIY sound system set into Absolut bottles and hung from the ceiling.

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The spaces are full of their own impressive hacks, including a bunch of suspended vodka bottle lights and reuse of cardboard bottle sleeves as horizontal organizers within wall shelves. There are slide-out work surfaces with sawhorse-style legs and rolling crates full of tools tucked under tables. Now that the event is over, Absolut plans to ship the Creative Space crates to a new location so they can be used for innovation again.

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Cargo Spotting: Field Guide to 20MM Global Shipping Containers

20 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Travel & Urban Exploration. ]

stacked cargo containers

Shipping containers pass by us daily on trucks, trains and ships, carrying 90% of the world’s non-bulk cargo with them, but if you have ever wondered what the mysterious colors and brands really mean, you will want to keep a copy of The Container Guide by your side. A publication of the Infrastructure Observatory, this volume contains a wealth of information on virtually all of the major companies that together own and ship the planet’s 20 million containers back and forth across the globe.

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Produced by Tim Hwang and Craig Cannon of the American Container Society, this waterproof, pocket-sized book contains maps, photos, logos, guides and tips to spotting cargo containers on (or off) ships around the world, handily searchable by region, color and brand. Part of the inspiration for this publication was the relative anonymity with which so many of these semi-mysterious companies seem to operate despite their size (a mere 100 companies control 9 out of 10 containers).

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Like Networks of New York, a recently-published field guide to internet infrastructure, this guide draws both conceptual and design “inspiration from classic Audubon birding guides, is a practical field guide to identifying containers and the corporations that own them. Inside you’ll find virtually every major shipping concern brought to life in full-color on durable, tear- and water-resistant paper.” More than just a resource or reference, the guide taps into our deeper shared urge to understand everyday systems and those unnoticed elements of daily life in a globalizing world.

shipping container port tour

The book also features introductions covering the history of containerized shipping, the rise of refrigerated modules and an introduction to using cargo containers as homes. The first of these three contributors recalls the instigator of this shipping revolution, Malcolm McLean “a trucker by trade, who saw that a multimodal unit that could be seamlessly shifted from ship to truck to train would do to shipping what Henry T. Ford’s production line did for the automobile manufacturer.” Indeed, the use of standard modules has revolutionized the way we ship and helped ships become the dominant form of transportation for goods around the world.

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Author and researcher Tim Hwang has more than a passing interest in large systems. A initial failed attempt to gain visitor access to a power plant led him to create the Infrastructure Observatory, a more official outfit to allow him and his fellows to check out everything from factories and roadways to global ports and waste water treatment plants. Last year, the group’s efforts culminated in a fantastic event (hopefully to be soon repeated) called MacroCity. This conference featured a series of panel discussions, presentations and a set of field trips around the Bay Area, including all kinds of professionals from landscape architects and dam engineers to topical authors and niche academics.

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Born in San Francisco, the BAIO has now expanded to include a New York chapter that recently took a trip to the Global Containers Terminal in New Jersey. Upcoming plans include a series of tours surrounding the birthday of Victor Gruen, founder of the modern shopping mall. Longer term, Hwang hopes to see Infrastructure Observatory chapters grow in cities around the world. Meanwhile, he wears many other hats as well,  as co-founder of the Awesome Society, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Imgur and Director of the Intelligence & Autonomy Project at the Data & Society Research Institute among other past and ongoing pursuits.

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Casa Cargo: Containers Frame Photographer’s Sustainable Home

04 Jan

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

green home exterior containers

Shaping both living spaces and modular work studios, a set of shipping containers were combined with a series of green building strategies to make this a place the ultimate home for a versatile creative with professional spatial needs.

green house living room

Eight used cargo containers provided a starting point for the design by architect Maria José Trejos in Costa Rica (photos by Sergio Pucci, enclosing rooms around the periphery of the plan and leaving a central day-lit void for photography, gatherings and natural cross-ventilation.

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The staggered containers create porches, patios and decks on the upper levels while framing social spaces, including a kitchen and dining room, on the main floor.

green upper deck designs

green wood bamboo halls

As the architect describes it, “The house dresses and undresses according to what you want to use it for, be it a living room, an audiovisual space, a photographic or advertising studio.”

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A reflective roof and rain harvesting techniques help keep the building cool and create graywater reserves, while the central open volume has raised windows for cross-ventilation purposes. Natural light and cooling help reduce energy consumption and associated costs.

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Low Cost House-in-a-House Made of 2 Shipping Containers

20 Sep

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

Low Cost Shipping Container House 1

Two colorful shipping containers set inside a garage-like outer structure form a spacious yet incredibly affordable family home free of the issues that can sometimes come with crate-based architecture, like poor insulation and soundproofing. The containers form two private rooms with loft space on each roof, while the envelope creates a courtyard and encourages air flow.

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The outer structure features a section of transparent panels to bring in daylight, saving energy. Large sliding doors open the home to the air in nice weather, and translucent walls help blur the boundaries between outdoors and in a little bit more.

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JYA-RCHITECTS designed the home for a family of seven in a rural South Korea village as an alternative to the dangerous, unsanitary housing they were previously living in. Sponsored by the Korea Child Fund, which improves living environments for low-income families, the project took on the challenge of creating a home that was large enough to make the family comfortable while sticking to an extremely tight budget.

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The solution is a single-story home with both private and communal spaces, making use of unwanted, cheap, prefabricated and readily available materials. While the envelope was custom-created for the project, it’s easy to imagine this idea being replicated with garage or shed kits, putting possibilities for affordable DIY housing in the hands of people of all walks of life, all over the world.

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3-in-1 Cargo Shelters: Expandable Containers Triple in Size

02 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

dynamic shipping container shelter

Shipping container shelters combine the appeal of ultimate portability with rugged durability, but these structures add another dimension lacking in the default configuration: three times as much space thanks to their transforming designs. Below are four examples with varying degrees of technological sophistication for a wide range of applications.

The RDSS (Rapid Deployment Shelter System) shown above can be deployed by one person in less than two minutes, expanding into a 400-square-foot, rigid-walled shelter – all from a single 20-foot ISO (International Standards Organization) shipping container module.

dynamic folding shelter design

interior cargo container module

While the same company offers a variety of similarly convertible solutions, the particular model in the video comes equipped with on-board heating and air conditioning systems and its own generator. The units can be sent by ship or rail, towed by trucks or flown by helicopters and stacked nine containers high.

Three-in-one cargo modules are made by a variety of manufacturers for deployment under various conditions, including military use, communications headquarters, medical triage, disaster relief centers, homes or offices – the one above is from Mobile Shelter Systems.

A soft-walled variant on the same theme of spatial expansion, the above patent-pending design unfolds two side panels that become floors with curved ceilings arcing overhead. A lower-tech approach, to be sure, but also one that could theoretically be done for much less money and in a do-it-yourself fashion for those inclined to create their own shipping container building.

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illy push button house

transforming pushbutton house design

While less suited for rugged outdoor use, any discussion of convertible shipping container spaces should include a mention of the Illy Push-Button House (which has both commercial and residential applications) designed by Adam Kalkin, the sides of which fold down to form an open-air living room area or temporary storefront space.

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Cargo Canvases: 6 Street Artists Paint 22 Stacked Containers

31 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

cargo container greek gods

Towers constructed from shipping container modules formed the blank basis behind this series of incredible giant-sized, site-specific artworks using spray paint and pole brushes.

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cargo container blank canvas

For the North West Walls Street Art Festival in Belgium, curated by Arne Quinze, each contributor was encouraged to compose something on one side of each of three unique and random-seeming stacks.

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Famous graffiti artists Pichi & Avo added an array of Greek gods to their chosen canvas, framing the brilliantly-rendered figures in contemporary style, using warm-colored graffiti to create a stark contrast around them.

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A play on the artist’s name and implicit commentary on creatures in captive zoo conditions, Roa’s Ark features a series of caged and chained animals each contained in one of the cargo units, the effectively black-and-white composition intentionally devoid of bright colors.

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Other contributors included Jen Zie and Martin Ron, adding further colorful and abstract creations to the mix. Together, the finished works represent a wonderful array of approaches, some playing on history, references and culture and others on visual effects, depth and perception.

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Jenga-Like Hotel Made of Stacked Shipping Containers

24 Apr

[ By Steph in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

Hive Inn Shipping Container Hotel 1

Shipping containers plastered in stark graphic branding are stacked in a Jenga-like configuration within a steel frame at the Hive-Inn, a concept hotel by OVA Studio. Individual units can easily be moved in and out for a constantly-changing design, with one-of-a-kind hotel suites traveling from one place to another.

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Each container gets a unique interior design created by a brand, whether a luxury fashion house like Louis Vuitton, a tech company like Samsung or a celebrity like Lady Gaga. The advertiser’s branding is also painted on the exterior, creating an experience that immerses the occupants in the sponsor’s chosen visuals.

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While some people aren’t crazy about feeling like ads are being force-fed to them, it’s not hard to imagine die-hard fans of companies like, say, Ferrari, jumping at the chance to stay in one of these rooms.

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OVA envisions the containers being leased to individuals or companies who need temporary space, used not just as hotel rooms but also offices or retail stores. The containers plug into a grid system with a service core and slots for small terraces.

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